Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg conducted his first ever public Q&A today, and while he was lobbed fluff questions about his fashion choices (among other things), there were some hard hitting questions thrown out as well.
To his credit, Zuckerberg didn’t back down from questions about declining Facebook reach and why users were forced to download the Messenger app. He took them head on and provided some fairly satisfactory answers.
Here are some highlights and key takeaways from some of the more important questions that were asked.
Why Is Organic Reach Declining?
There’s two reasons why organic reach is decreasing, Zuckerberg says. One reason is that more content is being shared per day, on average there’s around 1500 posts that could potentially be shown in an individual’s News Feed.
The other reason is that people don’t actually spend that much time perusing their News Feed. Facebook only shows each user around 100 posts in a given day because they believe no one will look at everything.
What it boils down to is that the competition for a spot in your News Feed is getting stronger than ever, so each post is naturally going to reach fewer people.
Zuckerberg showed empathy to businesses who are struggling with organic reach, but also admits most people would rather see posts from their close friends than from a business page. His advice to businesses is simply to “focus on sharing great content.”
Why Was Everyone Forced To Download Messenger?
Messenger was forced on all Facebook users because Zuckerberg believes it to be a better experience, and one that allows you to get faster responses from friends.
With 10 billion messages being sent per day, Facebook thought that amount of activity warranted its own standalone app. However, Zuckerberg showed some humility in admitting transitioning users to Messenger could have been handled more smoothly.
Why The Same Shirt Every Day?
Ok, you knew this question was going to get asked. Yes, he has more than one of the same shirt, he was sure to clear that up right away.
“I don’t feel like I’m doing my job if I spend any of my time on anything silly or frivolous in my life,” Zuckerberg said in response, which includes deciding what to wear each day.
One of his goals reduce the amount of decisions he has to make in his life so he can devote all of his attention to Facebook, and making it the best experience possible. Hey, it worked for Steve Jobs, right?